Monday, May 17, 2010

Chickpea & Black Eyed Bean Salad

A foodie on a diet!! Isn't that a tough, tough life?? Yeah, yeah, I know I am exaggerating:-)) But it isn't easy either when you have food on your mind but not on your plate. Naw, am not starving, far from it - eating small meals and snacks all day. Healthy snacks of course. I am on the look out for the health bhi, taste bhi recipes, now more than ever. At the cost of repeating myself, like a lot of us, good, tasty food is very important to me If I am on a diet, then it had better be low calorie tasty grub. Like this Chickpea and Black Eyed Bean Salad.

This Sanjeev Kapoor recipe was in my recipe diary since ages, but I had not made it as I was just plain lazy to take the trouble of cooking the beans separately. Its sometimes so strange that some ridiculously simple things like having 3 or 4 variety of beans at the same time in your pantry just takes ages to happen!!! Well, at last, I got the beans, soaked them and cooked them separately. Well, it was 4 beans actually, but the third bean, the kidney beans, refused to cook well in spite of repeated attempts. I gave up!!! I forgot to get the green gram:-(. It became a Two Bean Salad instead of the original Four Bean Salad.

Again, there are no rules for making salads. Add or skip ingredients and vary the proportions of the same according to your taste and preference. A chilled salad is such a pleasure in summers, more so if its protein laden, low in fat, can be made ahead and stored. Indulge in this tongue tickling, chaat like preparation without any guilt whatsoever.

Soak the beams separately overnight and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles, in separate containers. You may need to cook any of the beans again . Ensure that the beans are well cooked, but not overdone.

Mix together all the ingredients for the dressing and chill for at least one hour. Toss with the rest of the ingredients and serve chilled garnished with coriander leaves. Yumm!!! Can health get more lip smacking than this??